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Workforce Realigned: How New Partnerships Are Advancing Economic Mobility

The Social Finance Institute, Workforce & Economic Mobility, Education

Highlights

19Case studies on how to reboot economic mobility in America

Declining economic mobility is one of the defining challenges of our time. The path to better jobs through good training and workforce programs is narrower now than ever before. But we’re seeing a promising response across the country: innovative, accountable workforce partnerships that are delivering results for U.S. workers and businesses.

These partnerships—often betweenWorkforce Realigned Book Cover Page government agencies, employers, and training institutions—suggest a broader realignment in how we prepare the future workforce. They carefully balance incentives—making sure, for example, that training institutions have a stake in student outcomes, or that programs making progress on policy goals have a pathway to scale. They often link funding to results, defining success in advance and measuring progress along the way. And they work to expand access to education and training opportunities while fairly allocating the risks and benefits of training across partners.

Workforce Realigned: How New Partnerships Are Advancing Economic Mobility is a book from Social Finance and the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Philadelphia sharing 19 case studies and nascent ideas on how to reboot economic mobility in America—from leaders including U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Governor Charlie Baker, and former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair.

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Download Chapters

Foreword and Introduction

Public Policy

Employers and the Workforce System

Student Payment

Podcast

Workforce Realigned is a special edition of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Economy Matters podcast featuring innovative ideas about how to reboot economic mobility in America, such as using new financial tools to shift from paying for uncertain training programs to paying for measured outcomes.

Listen on Apple Podcasts →

Workforce Realigned Podcast, Episode 3: Paying for Outcomes
Workforce Realigned Episode 3 cover

Episode 3: Paying for Outcomes: Innovative Funding Tools for the Public Sector

  • Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, President, American Idea Foundation
  • Former Governor Deval Patrick, Professor of Practice and Co-Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Workforce Realigned brings together innovative ideas from a diverse set of leading thinkers to build smarter, more accountable partnerships that place worker outcomes at the center.

Dr. Raj Chetty

William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University

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Workforce Realigned argues for building a more successful and inclusive economy including improving access to training, lifelong learning, and opportunity.

Penny Pritzker

Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Founder and Chairman, PSP Partners

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Innovative ideas, like the case studies presented here, provide a roadmap for business leaders as they adapt to a fast-changing economy and uncover better ways to find and retain great people.

Lata Reddy

Senior Vice President of Inclusive Solutions, Prudential Financial; Chair, The Prudential Foundation

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Workforce Realigned provides a blueprint—grounded in real-world examples—of a dynamic and equitable new system that promises to ensure that the tremendous public and private investment we make is well-spent.

Jim Shelton

Chief Investment and Impact Officer, Blue Meridian Partners; Former Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

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Workforce Realigned provides real-life examples of investments that scale equitable opportunities for skill building and addresses systemic inequities and inefficiencies in the marketplace.

Carla Thompson Payton

Vice President for Program Strategy, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

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National Launch Event

The national launch event of Workforce Realigned featured a conversation with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, and Bank of America Chairman of the Board and CEO Brian Moynihan, moderated by Social Finance CEO Tracy Palandjian.

Advisory Committee

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